So, I unintentionally took almost the whole month of February off from the notebook.
I would sit down to write it and every week it seemed something else would pop up.
I had plenty of things to say, but they're all random and untimely now. Not that the regular column is ever any different.
But anyway, I'm back just in time for spring sports. Baseball and softball scrimmage this weekend, so I'll have more to say next week I'm sure.
Here's the top positive to take out of a tough situation last week:
I don't really envy Douglas boys' basketball coach Corey Thacker's job over the next year or so.
Simply put, it'll be an exercise in tempering expectations.
On one hand, he has an extraordinary incoming class of JV players that went undefeated this year (the sophomores have yet to lose a high school game after going undefeated at the freshman level as well).
On the other, he has an enormously talented returning core of up to 10 players that - with a couple twists and turns during the year - could've been playing at the state tournament this season.
You take those two facts alone and it's easy to think, "Well, obviously they are going to be unbeatable next year."
Don't get me wrong, next year's Tigers should be very, very good. But, the rest of the region has been rebuilding along with them the last two or three years and 2010-11 should be a payoff year for the rest of them as well.
For casual fans of the sport, that will be a terrific thing. We'll get back to some of the high-level games we were seeing three years ago with Luke Babbitt, Armon Johnson, Austin Morgan, Olek Czyz, Keith Olson, Archie Kovich and very, very good supporting casts around each of those guys.
But it's a very fair bet that no one is going to be going undefeated. In fact, some very good teams are going to get left out of the playoffs (which, last I heard, were going to be in a new six-team format with the league champions getting a first-round bye. That'll be a column for future weeks, so keep an eye out).
This was a young class all the way around for Northern 4A and they're only going to get better.
Manogue's Bobby Hunter was the ranking senior and he carried his team with admirable ability and leadership. After him, though, you get a whole crop of players who will be back.
You take a look at the all-league teams and 12 of 30 players who were first- or second-team all-leaguers in the Sierra and High Desert this year will be back next year.
McQueen, one of the early regional favorites for next year, has three of those coming back, Manogue has two and Douglas has four.
Some of the best overall players - McQueen's Rollins Stallworth, Carson's Andrew Johnson and Manogue's Niles Lujan, not to mention Douglas' Jorey Scott and Austin Neddenriep - will be back.
It should make for great basketball. Add to it that some of the "easier" wins like Fallon and South Tahoe will be gone due to realignment - leaving a league of Douglas, Damonte Ranch, Manogue, Carson, Galena and Wooster.
There won't be any off nights, to say the least.
In Carson Valley, it'll also make for a great offseason. Consider competition officially open for those 12 or so varsity roster spots, but its a fair bet 9 or 10 of them are as good as taken already based on the character and work ethic of this season's team. That leaves only two or three spots up for grabs.
As Thacker said after the season, "We're going to find out what players belong at the varsity level."
The wealth of available talent is a good problem to have. I'm just glad I'm not the one who has to sift through it.
- "They're all just great humans," - NBC commentary of the Canada-USA gold medal men's hockey game.
- It's been less than 48 hours and I'm already having Olympic withdrawls. Good thing we still get the Universal Sports Network.
- It seems the longer my daughter's hair gets, the longer it takes us to get out the front door.
Time for this week's installment of Edd Roush's All-Stars (Formerly "This Wacky World of Sports") - Celebrating Edd Roush, the only player ever ejected from a Major League Baseball game for sleeping in the outfield.
- Not showing up in NBC's extensive, if not sometimes irrelevant (did anyone see the piece on the sled dogs? How about on the Lumber Jacks?) Olympics coverage, was the fact that the Norweigien men's hockey team had a player with one of the best nicknames of all time.
22-year-old forward Mats Zuccarello Aasen goes by "The Norweigien Hobit Wizard". He's short, has long stringy hair and can shoot lightning bolts out of his palms. Go figure.
- The Tri-County YMCA youth basketball league in Southbridge, Mass., sent a letter to parents before season-ending finals saying that they would be barred from attending because too many of them had been unruly during the season.
Program coordinators said parents would yell at referees or at one another, which led to continuing arguments during games. Police have not been called, but the officials said they will not let it get to that point.
"This is what we tried to do to let people know this is not appropriate behavior,'' said Sue Casine, recreation director at the YMCA. "It's just a youth league. It's a youth league for kids to play ball and have fun and learn skills and good sportsmanship, but we were having some trouble with parents in the stands.''
